Wright Brothers

STRATFORD, Conn. -- Aviation buffs, attempting to challenge the Wright brothers` claim to history`s first powered manned flight, Friday towed a crude bat-winged airplane a few feet into the air with actor Cliff Robertson at the controls. The flight enthusiasts huddled on a small airstrip and cheered when the replica of Gustav Whitehead`s 1901 plane lifted while tethered to a flatbed truck at Sikorsky Memorial Airport. The flight of the replica was a preliminary test leading up to a powered flight expected in three or four weeks.

Domingo Rosillo del Toro, Wright Brothers, Key West to Havana flight It was a time when aviation was in its earliest stages, when it took guts just get in a plane, let alone fly over 90 miles of open water. But tempted by a competition with $10,000 in prize money, Domingo Rosillo del Toro steeled his courage on May 17, 1913 and took off from Key West to Cuba. He was accompanied by a monkey, handed to him at the last minute as a good luck charm. While little is known about the monkey, the good luck part worked.

Wright stuff: He looks a little like Wilbur. But she doesn't look anything like Orville. He is Kevin Kochersberger and she is Terry Queijo, and they have been selected to re-create the Wright brothers' first powered flight this December as part of the First Flight Centennial Celebration at Kill Devil Hills, N.C. Because they both can't make that first historic foray, they will flip a coin at the original Kitty Hawk launch site on Dec. 15, much as...

The 19th century gave us the ability to communicate through radio and then television. The combustion engine gave us the freedom afforded by the automobile. Coupled with the Wright brothers' ingenuity and followed by the invention of the jet aircraft, travel across the globe was reduced to hours instead of days. Advances in agriculture have enabled us to feed the world. Today we can heal in vitro, provide synthetic limbs to the crippled, and solve a plethora of maladies. The Internet provides information at our fingertips.

Every presentation begins the same: Jim Spence arranges his props - an empty inner tube box, a ball of twine and a stick topped with counter-rotating propellers - on a table before an audience. In an instant, he transforms into his alter ego, Orville Wright, summoning forth that moment in 1878 when he and his brother, Wilbur, first turned their thoughts to flight: Their father, Bishop Milton Wright, brought home a Penaud toy helicopter, powered by rubber bands, and released it as he entered their room.

To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight. James Tobin. The Free Press. $28. 430 pages. One hundred years ago this November two brothers from Dayton, Ohio, dragged a contraption they'd been calling a flyer to a windy bluff on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was a cold, bitter day, the presence of a photographer the only nod to the historic possibilities of what they were about to do. Orville and Wilbur Wright were going to attempt the first powered flight.

Wilbur and Orville were not exactly wild and crazy guys. But they sure are the life of the party now. Come mid-December, tens of thousands of aviation buffs will attend two spectacular events, capping off a year of celebrations honoring the Wright brothers' historic achievement 100 years ago: The First Flight Centennial Celebration, Dec. 12 to Dec. 17 in Kill Devil Hills, N.C., will feature a re-enactment of the first powered flight, 100 planes flying...

The celebration is a year away, but ticket sales have already begun for a festival in Dayton, Ohio, marking the centennial of the Wright brothers' historic first manned flight in Kitty Hawk, N.C. The festival is among dozens of aviation events across the nation in 2003 that will climax Dec. 17 with a planned re-creation of the 1903 flight. Dayton, where Orville and Wilbur Wright lived and worked, will offer an expanded version of its annual air show July 17-20. There will be more vintage aircraft and possibly aerial stunt teams from foreign countries as well as the United States.

The 19th century gave us the ability to communicate through radio and then television. The combustion engine gave us the freedom afforded by the automobile. Coupled with the Wright brothers' ingenuity and followed by the invention of the jet aircraft, travel across the globe was reduced to hours instead of days. Advances in agriculture have enabled us to feed the world. Today we can heal in vitro, provide synthetic limbs to the crippled, and solve a plethora of maladies. The Internet provides information at our fingertips.

The Wright Way 7 Problem-Solving Principles from the Wright Brothers By Mark Eppler. AMACOM. $21.95. Neither of the Wright brothers had a high school diploma. They made their living as bicycle mechanics, and worked on their dream of manned flight part time. Eppler identifies seven "what? how? why?" principles that guided them: 1. FORGING uses constructive conflict to brainstorm and validate ideas. Forging places the corporate personality well above those of individuals. Organizations filled with silos, office politics and turf wars must resolve those cultural issues before they try to solve marketplace problems.

Pauline Sample of Plantation recently joined the growing ranks of centenarians living in South Florida. But unlike most others who came here from somewhere else, Sample is pure native. She chatted with Henry Flagler, saw the Wright Brothers' airplane and lived through the great hurricane of 1926. The wooden house where she was born in 1905 was staked out among the open spaces of Allapattah. Seventeen blocks west of the city of Miami, it was described as the end of the world. "There were people there, but not like now," said Sample, a well-dressed twig of a woman in pink pants and a pink top. "Miami was swamp."

Inspired by the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., some fifth-graders at Poinciana Elementary School are building their own 10-foot model of the Wright brothers' Kitty Hawk Flyer, complete with a scaled-down mannequin of Wilbur himself. The brainchild of teacher Bruce Rich, the model has required students to draw, carve, glue, shape, cut and papier-mchM-i with almost singular devotion since early February. They expect to finish next week. Rich wants to hang the model from the cafeteria ceiling of the science magnet school.

The Shroud of Turin it's not. But the postcard-sized piece of white cloth on display at the Orlando Science Center carries a mystery not unlike that of the fabled, centuries-old burial shroud that bears the image of a crucified man who some think is Jesus of Nazareth. The Central Florida cloth, thought to be a piece of the original wing covering of the Kitty Hawk Flyer that launched the age of aviation 100 years ago, went on public display Saturday as part of the center's ongoing "Touch the Sky" tribute to a century of aviation.

The disappointing showing at Kill Devil Hills on Dec. 17 highlights the power of Mother Nature, as well as the astuteness of the Wright Brothers, but downgrades the intelligence that we have acquired over the Century of Powered Flight. There is no way that a flight should have been attempted without a steady headwind of 15 to 20 mph. After full-scale wind-tunnel tests were accomplished, and flight simulations made using expert pilots, it should be obvious that the Flyer is a difficult vehicle to handle outside of its useful flight regime of about 30 to 36 mph true airspeed.

The 12-second flight 100 years ago reached a height of just 10 feet, less than the 63-foot height of a Boeing 747, and covered just 120 feet of ground, less than a 747's 195-foot wingspan. But the Wright brothers' fourth and final flight that day (Dec. 17) in North Carolina lasted 59 seconds and went 852 feet. So by sunset the 20th century's themes -- farther, faster, higher, now -- were, so to speak, in the air. Almost everything -- commerce, war, art -- would change as aviation began altering, as nothing had ever done, humanity's experience of the most basic things: time and space.

It's not often you get to board a classic airliner, let alone one that has been converted into a boat. As part of Centennial of Flight festivities honoring the Wright brothers, the public is invited to a free tour of the Cosmic Muffin from 5 to 10 p.m. on Wednesday while it's docked near the Las Olas Riverfront gazebo in Fort Lauderdale. At one time, this was a vintage Boeing 307 Stratoliner and billionaire industrialist Howard Hughes' private plane, powered by four 900-horsepower radial piston engines.

The disappointing showing at Kill Devil Hills on Dec. 17 highlights the power of Mother Nature, as well as the astuteness of the Wright Brothers, but downgrades the intelligence that we have acquired over the Century of Powered Flight. There is no way that a flight should have been attempted without a steady headwind of 15 to 20 mph. After full-scale wind-tunnel tests were accomplished, and flight simulations made using expert pilots, it should be obvious that the Flyer is a difficult vehicle to handle outside of its useful flight regime of about 30 to 36 mph true airspeed.

The History Channel commemorates the centennial of flight with the two-hour special The Wright Challenge on Tuesday at 9 p.m. The show follows the progress of four diverse "teams" that attempt to re-create the 1903 Wright Flyer. But the show winds up demonstrating the incredible skill and brilliance of Orville and Wilbur Wright. After thousands of hours of research and work, the participants still find it hard to understand how the Wright brothers ever succeeded without contemporary tools and 100 more years of knowledge.

Wilbur and Orville were not exactly wild and crazy guys. But they sure are the life of the party now. Come mid-December, tens of thousands of aviation buffs will attend two spectacular events, capping off a year of celebrations honoring the Wright brothers' historic achievement 100 years ago: The First Flight Centennial Celebration, Dec. 12 to Dec. 17 in Kill Devil Hills, N.C., will feature a re-enactment of the first powered flight, 100 planes flying...